A Special Child: What’s a Mother to Do?
Charles IsherwoodNovember 3, 2014: The nuclear family and the traditions of Tibetan Buddhism come into conflict in The Oldest Boy, the new play by Sarah Ruhl, about an American child who is identified by monks as the reincarnation of a revered Buddhist teacher. This revelation — if revelation it truly is — poses a painful challenge to the child’s parents, a Tibetan-born father who runs a restaurant in an unnamed American city, and his Cincinnati-born mother. Buddhist practice would require that the boy — just 3 when the play begins — be sent to India to study for his calling at a monastery, a move that naturally dismays his parents, particularly his mother. Ms. Ruhl’s drama, which opened on Monday night at the Mitzi Newhouse Theater at Lincoln Center, is among the most easily accessible from this poetic, venturesome playwright. In addition to being an exploration of a family’s willingness to embrace a radical notion of what may be best for its child, the play offers a neat primer in the history and principles of Tibetan Buddhism. It’s mostly written in a naturalistic style that is far from the regular — which is to say refreshingly irregular — form of Ms. Ruhl, whose previous works include The Clean House and In the Next Room, or the vibrator play (both also produced by Lincoln Center Theater), as well as Eurydice and Stage Kiss. Had I read or seen the play, not knowing its author, I would not have guessed that Ms. Ruhl had written it.
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